On the evening of May 27, 2015, Michael McMahon was nominated by the local Democratic Party as its candidate for Staten Island District Attorney. The very next day, his wife, state Supreme Court Justice Judith McMahon, who was also the Administrative Judge of the St. George court, contacted A. Gail Prudenti, the Chief Administrative Judge statewide, with a request. As a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration confirmed, Justice McMahon asked that she be immediately relieved of any further administrative responsibilities for criminal matters "to avoid even the slightest appearance of conflict" during her husband's campaign.

Judge Prudenti agreed, naming Supreme Court Justice Stephen Rooney to be acting administrator for the criminal side of the court pending the outcome of the election. Commenting on his wife's prompt action, candidate McMahon said, "That's the ethical and conflict-of-interest-free practice that she's followed her whole life."

After he defeated Republican Joan Illuzzi to become Staten Island's District Attorney, the dual administrative arrangement was maintained. Last Wednesday, however, both Justices McMahon and Rooney resigned their respective administrative positions, with news reports the following day disclosing that a court clerk, Michael Pulizotto, had been secretly recording courthouse conversations for two years, and had turned at least some of them over to OCA's Inspector General. An investigation by that office is reportedly ongoing.

Justice McMahon's transfer

On Friday, Justice Deborah Kaplan, from Manhattan, was appointed Acting Administrative Judge for both the civil and criminal side of the Supreme Court on Staten Island, a return to the long-standing policy of having one judge handle all such responsibilities. That, of course, allowed Justice Rooney to concentrate on handling criminal-term matters on Staten Island. His resignation from administrative duties was, therefore, pro forma. Justice Rooney enjoys an impeccable reputation for honesty, integrity, and legal scholarship. Lawyers, citing his exemplary judicial temperament, consistently say that it's a pleasure to try cases before him. To infer a single negative thing about him from last week's developments would be flagrantly irresponsible.

Justice McMahon has been transferred to Manhattan where she will handle civil cases. According to multiple sources, OCA is claiming that her reassignment was prompted in part by a belief that she did not adhere to a strict dichotomy between civil and criminal matters while discharging her administrative duties under the split arrangement. Whether that's true and, if so, to what degree and consequence, remains to be seen.

More to the point, it's virtually impossible to maintain such a strict separation in matters of court administration. The reason is obvious. When it comes to such things as personnel assignments, allocation of resources, or a multitude of other administrative judgments, many significant actions affecting one side of the court will, of necessity, have at least some impact on the other side as well.

Demanding assignment

So if administrative overreach is the reason being advanced for Justice McMahon's transfer, it seems pretexual. Besides, if she's no longer going to be functioning as an administrator, why move her out of the county where she lives and the court she knows so well?

Justice McMahon had been presiding over the Jury Coordination Part, a demanding assignment that wins no friends for any jurist. Think of it as crunch time for cases marked ready for jury trials. With heavy calendars, too few judges, and court officials expecting dispositions, the pressure is on both the judge presiding and the attorneys involved to either settle these final-stage cases then and there, or have them sent for jury selection, often that very day. This, of necessity, requires the judge to be skeptical of applications for adjournments or last-minute motions for relief. To characterize a judge as tough and no-nonsense, as some have of Justice McMahon, is not necessarily a bad thing. In any event, it's precisely what a judge must be in that part.

Secret Recordings

Dennis Quirk, President of the New York State Court Officers Association, was right on the money when he told the New York Law Journal last week that it was "totally improper" for Pulizotto to have secretly recorded conversations with judges, lawyers and court officers at various locations throughout the Staten Island courthouse. Absent properly procured permission, such recordings are specifically barred by the Rules of the Chief Judge. If, as some media reports suggest, Pulizotto felt himself aggrieved by something Justice McMahon said or did, he had numerous avenues of recourse available to him. To have opted instead to lull unsuspecting people into conversation, while armed with a hidden recording device, was not only sleazy but despicable.

There are enough cynics conditioned to think the worst of the court system as it is. The headlines generated by Pulizotto's covert operation serve only to stoke their paranoia. That's a real shame, because there's no other place in this entire state where lawyers and litigants are treated better, or justice is more secure, than in the courts on Staten Island.

[Daniel Leddy's column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Editorial Page. His e-mail address is column@danielleddylaw.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/LegalHotShots.]